Home Is Definitely Wherever My Heart Is

A few years back I made the difficult decision to walk away from my life in the Land of White Picket Fences and subsequently found myself unpacking my earthly treasures slightly further down the food chain, in a place I affectionately refer to as "the ghetto".

My first stop was a 2 bedroom apartment my friends and I proudly dubbed "Casa Loca". It was a sight to behold. Mmmhmm. Right out of the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, I tell ya. BH&G circa 1957, that is. I'm not sure which I fell in love with first - the robin's egg blue tub, matching sink and mis-matching yellow, black and pink tile in the bathroom OR the 'push button' stove top (you know it's bad when your 60+ yr old parents have no frame of reference for such an appliance!). I'd include photos, but that would inevitably lead each of you to covet my good fortune and I simply can't be responsible for anyone (besides myself) breaking one of the 10 Commandments on a Sunday.

If all the *ahem* one-of-a-kind fixtures weren't enough to sell me on the place, I soon discovered that my new home also came with an around the clock watchdog service - namely unemployed 'Toothless heart transplant guy' in the unit above and 'Pajama pants grandpa' in the unit below - no fearful nights for this newly single-again gal!

As much as it pained me, after a year of livin' the high life in Unit 6, I set out in search of something a little more spacious and a whole lot more soundproof. Leaving remnants of my glamorous new lifestyle at the curb (sadly, not every piece of 2nd hand furniture is built to survive multiple transitions), I hit the jackpot AGAIN (what are the odds?!) and moved the remainder of my worldly goods *read Tupperware* into a 2 bedroom townhouse in a fabulous neighbourhood (why, just today we had police cars roaring down our street at 8 am - talk about tight security!). It's my self-proclaimed "Castle of Fun" where - you guessed it - the thrills are cheap, and anything goes.

While I haven't yet discovered any rare and unique amenities in Unit 7 , I'm pretty sure it still qualifies as ghetto livin' and that suits me just fine. There's been something humbling, but also liberating about calling these places home. It's my space (as long as I keep dropping those cheques in the Superintendent's mailbox each month) and it's filled with an abundance of laughter and love (not to mention my $13 TV *cha-ching*) ... that's my idea of prime real estate. No white picket fence required.

Fronti nulla fides.